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Friday, 13 February 2015

Vapnartak Tournament Recap

Alright, second tournament weekend of 2015. Went down to York with Pippatick for the weekend, did some sightseeing on Saturday and then down to Vappa for a 3-game 40ss tournament on Sunday. First of all, it was really cool having a tournament in a convention, especially as we were given a 2 hour gap between game 1 and 2 so we could have lunch and look around. Pippatick and I both picked up some basing stuff (flowers for me and frosted grass tufts for her).

Thanks to Chris Holloway for running a great event, and especially for making sure I got a lunch I could eat as it's tricky sometimes with my dietary issues. Also there was a prize raffle after the tournament (raising money for WAAC and Help for Heroes) and I won a limited edition Red Translucent Bete Noire. Not sure what I'm gonna do with it as I don't play Resurrs, but still very happy with the extensive prize support. Alright, on to the games.

Game One vs Phil Sanderson
Extraction (Standard Deployment)
A Line In The Sand
Protect Territory
Assassinate
Spring the Trap
Take Prisoner

My Schemes: Protect Territory (revealed), Spring the Trap
His Schemes: Line in the Sand (undeclared), Assassinate

End of Turn 1

Phil had never been in a Malifaux tournament and had only recently switched to Resurrectionists, so I knew I had a good chance in this game. That being said, he could easily hide Nicodem at the back of the board which would make it incredible difficult for me to Spring the Trap or Assassinate him. I decided to go with Spring the Trap despite this and hope that Teddy or Lilitu would be able to move him close enough to me to get at least a couple points from that scheme. I decided it was best to pretend I was placing markers for protect territory and then Lure him into that area. Worst case scenario I don't score that scheme but have markers down for Protect Territory anyway.

Turn one saw us both move around and position ourselves for turn two. I summoned Lelu and Lilitu and he summoned a punk zombie (he black jokered one summon this turn I believe). Turn two I managed to kill a canine remains with Lelu and use Teddy to charge a punk zombie in the turf war circle and push him to also engage another punk zombie who I also pushed out of the extraction circle. I also managed to tie up his belle and Flesh construct with widow weaver who would stop them from walking into the turf war and scoring all game. Thus Teddy and Widow Weaver each stopped two models from accessing the turf was circle and put me up at an early 1-0 lead.

Turn two Dreamer also summoned two Stitched Togethers although one managed to kill itself despite the flesh construct being DF 1, as he flipped really well and I had no high cards. The rest of the game played into my hands fairly well, with Teddy tying up 2 punk zombies and a necropunk. Every time Teddy killed a punk zombie, Nicodem summoned another in base contact with him, but Teddy managed to survive the whole game. For some reason he was using Mortimer to run down his left flank and attempt Line in the Sand. I was fine letting him do this as it's not a great use of mortimer... He had a canine remains running down the other flank that managed to also get a LITS marker down. Sadly since he didn't announce it and only got two markers down, he wouldn't score any points from it.

On Turn 3 I managed to give Lilitu fast and have her Lure Nicodem from the back of the board to a spot in between 3 of my scheme markers to score me full points for Spring the Trap. Widow Weaver paralyzed him in turn 4 and my other models ran around placing markers for protect territory.

The game timed out after turn 4 so ended with a 9-0 win for me (as I couldn't get the final point for extraction). MVPs of the game for me were Teddy (for pushing guys out of the circle and tying them up all game), Lilitu (for luring nicodem to where I could spring the trap on him, otherwise there is no way I could have reached him) and to lesser extent Widow Weaver for tying up a belle and Flesh Construct to make sure he couldn't get them near the extraction marker either.

Aaaand End of the game.

Game Two vs Shane McDowell
Head Hunter (Corner Deployment)
A Line In The Sand
Breakthrough
Murder Protégé
Distract
Plant Explosives

Sadly, after game 1 I forgot to take any more pictures, sorry. Really gotta work on that for future tournaments... Was up on table 2 for the second game, a good start to the day. Headhunter has quickly become one of my favourite schemes, it is a ton of fun and Teddy/Dreamer combo is great at it.

Turn 1 I summoned Lilitu who managed to lure a dead doxy into range of Teddy's charge (after Teddy had been pushed by daydreams). Teddy killed her and using his trigger dragged himself back to the rest of my crew, depositing a headmarker near Lilitu to pick up on turn 2. He was suprised by the speed of Teddy. Unluckily Seamus managed to teleport and take a shot at Teddy to take off 6 bunch of wounds. Other than that turn 2 was mostly about positioning things. I kept everything close together so that he couldn't kill anything without me being able to pick up the head.

He won initiative turn 2 and shot Teddy with Seamus, taking him down to 1 wound. I was about to rejoice but then he used his live for pain action to do 2 damage to Teddy killing him.. aww... He had tied up my silurid with a belle on the previous turn but had forgotten that I could just leap away, which I did to grab my own Teddy's headmarker scoring me a VP. I also managed to outactivate him this turn and then used a Silurid to jump over a box it had been hiding behind, drop a scheme marker between a group of his models and then walk away which scored me full points for plant explosives. I believe this put me up 4-0 after turn 2 and feeling supremely confident as I had a headmarker to grab for another point on turn 3 (the doxy who died turn 1).

Turn 3 is where I started making some dumb mistakes (though for the most part my play was still fairly solid). I managed to pick up the headmarker of the doxy with the silurid who had picked up Teddy's head (the other silurid having run away to his deployment zone to start placing markers for breakthrough). An insidious madness I had summoned the previous turn also managed to zip past his lines and start placing markers for breakthrough. Seamus teleported away and killed the silurid that had placed a marker for breakthrough (and then removed the marker in his next turn). Was starting to get worried here as was not sure I would be able to score breakthrough with Seamus killing my scheme runners. I also made a horrendous mistake by forgetting about a marker he had placed for "breakthrough" which I knew was for plant explosives. However, I completely forgot it was there and on my last activation of the turn I defensive-stanced Lilitu instead of having her walk and remove it, which gave my opponent 3 points... damnit! 5-3 after turn 3. Dreamer has also summoned two stitched this turn, one of which had killed itself. Chompy also came out and killed a belle or Doxy (I forget which) and dropped headmarker which the remaining stitched walked up to to grab turn 4.

Since 30min left had been called during turn 3 I was pretty convinced we would only make it until the end of turn 4 (spoiler: my second dumb mistake this game) so turn 4 after grabbing the stitched headmarker I pushed/ran Lilitu, my second silurid and Chompy/Dreamer across the board and ended the turn with 4 markers down for breakthrough (all I needed was two but wanted to play it safe). I was so sure that last turn would be called during this turn that I ignored the fact that if we got to turn 5 I would have nothing to stop him from scoring breakthrough... He shot and killed my stitched, leaving a headmarker, but couldn't pick it up unless it went to turn 5. However, last turn was not called so the game went on (oh crap..). I was up 6-4 (as he had picked up the head of one of my models at some point...) and if the game had ended turn 4 like I thought it would I would have won 9-4... sadly this was not to be.

On the bright side I knew I had won as he could only score 4 vp this turn, but I wanted those Vp. he first picked up the headmarker to score for that and then it was a race to see if I could stop him from scoring breakthrough. Lilitu lured Madame Sybelle and a Doxy and tied them up. A silurid tied up one his belles and I managed to use dreamer pushes/fast to get an insidious madness all the way across the board from his deployment zone but couldn't quite get within 1" of the belle that the silurid tied up so I couldn't engage him... oh well. His free belle walked and placed a scheme marker. It all came down to whether the belle could escape the silurid on her first action, difference between a 9-6 and 9-8 game. Sadly for me she got away and the game ended 9-8 in my favour.

This was a game I should have won by a much larger margin but I made a really dumb mistake (forgetting to remove his plant explosives marker) and then took my foot off the gas pedal too early (thinking we wouldn't make turn 5). Lesson learned for the future. Was my second great game of the day, and I assumed I would be staying around tables 2-3 for the final game with how small my victory in game 2 was.

Game Three vs Greg Piskosz
Stake A Claim (Close Deployment)
A Line In The Sand
Bodyguard
Protect Territory
Outflank
Plant Explosives

I was wrong. I ended up on table one vs the Chosen One. Outside of the Masters he had won two straight events and as a neverborn player I knew he wouldn't be surprised by Dreamer. I had barely dodged him in the second round as I had the 3rd highest deferential at that point and Greg has smashed his other opponents so far. I looked to my left and saw Ant (the Master) and Joel (UK #1) on table two. Needless to say I felt a little out of my league. I wanted to make a game of this so knew I wanted schemes that I could score quickly or would be hard for him to stop. Plant explosives was an easy choice as I knew I would be outactivating him (at least in the early game) so should be able to score that easily and at least make it a close game. I also announced Protect territory as I figured as long as I could spread out and hide some models by markers he wouldn't be able to stop me from getting some points from it. The downside of course was this was all hugely dependent on avoiding Pandora and the Primordial magic making everything insignificant. Hadn't thought about that before he announced his crew but holy crap pandora is good at Stake a claim with that power.

Turn 1 I summoned an Insidious Madness and Lilitu. He aggressively moved up his silurids, gupps, and pandora (though didn't place any markers). The placement of Pandora really messed with me as it made it impossible for one of my silurids to leap across the board (it was on a building) without getting stuck in combat with pandora... crap. First example of what a good player Greg is (more to come on that..) Dreamer's 3rd ap had been used to give coppelius fast, which allowed coppelius to double walk and place a scheme marker near one of his silurids. My other silurid leaped and placed a marker between his other silurids and his gupps. It meant he was in a better place for stake a claim, but at least I scored my max 3 vp for plant explosives on turn 1. Greg later told me that this really put him on the back foot and I honestly think I may have outplayed him a bit in turn 1. Unluckily he outplayed me in every other turn...

Turn 2 is when the tide started turning. He managed to win initiative and Pandora made my silurid who wasn't in my backfield insignificant. This really hurt as if I had won initiative I would have been able to leap him away and put down a stake a claim marker. He survived until the end of the game but was basically useless as a silurid is only good for interacting... My other silurid leaped and staked a claim. Stupidly I did this too early in the turn so his gupps placing a claim marker destroyed mine. Also the Hooded Rider charged my silurid and killed him. The other big mistake I made this turn was forgetting that his silurid on my other flank had placed a scheme marker on the bottom of a building where I had two models on top (and another near him on the ground) which scored him full points for plant explosives. This was not a situation like the previous game where it would have been easy to remove it, but I still could have changed my plan to get rid of it. Oh well, pretty sure he would've been able to score it at some point anyway. He managed to have 2 claim markers down compared to my one so at the end of the turn he had taken a 4-3 lead and I was left with no functioning silurids. I was really in trouble at this point.

Turn 3 I desperately tried (short handed) to at least tie him on the strategy, but down two silurids it proved very difficult. I also had to make a decision whether or not I would go all out trying to score the strategy, and potentially risk not being able to score my scheme, or focus on the scheme and keep the game close. I went for the latter. He managed to win the stake markers again on turn 3 (4-3 this time). I also managed to get in position to get a bunch of markers down for protect territory on turn 4.

By turn four I had accepted that at best I could pull off a 9-6 loss. He won initiative again and pushed Pandora into a group of Dreamer, Coppelius, and the insignificant silurid to try and stop me from scoring protect territory. He also managed to get in range to give insignificant to one of my insidious madness' but luckily I managed to outflip him in this case and could cheat higher than him. My two insidious madness' put down Protect territory markers and dreamer summoned daydreams who pushed coppelius free so he got down a 3rd one (just in case). He also managed to get enough markers down to score protect territory. The game ended 9-6 which is probably the closest game of stake a claim I've ever had against likely the best player I've faced so far. So quite happy with the result.

I ended up having the highest VP differential of all the 2-1 players which was good for fifth as the top 3 players went 3-0 and Chris Hay went 2-0-1. Really happy with my performance in these games despite a couple boneheaded mistakes (especially concerning plant explosives...). I managed to score all 6 scheme points in every game, which I was quite proud of, and I really feel like I am starting to establish myself as a second tier player in the UK scene (not a threat to win but have come in the top 7 at all 3 tournaments this year so far... at least I'm consistent). Have another two tournaments coming up later in February so hopefully I can end up cracking the top 25 (I was 27th after this tournament and currently 28th) by the end of the month.